Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
on Tuesday May 16, 2006 @03:19PM
from the need-faster-video-editing-staff dept.

Robotron23 writes "The BBC is reporting that the US government has decided to release the videotape depicting the crash of Flight 77 into the Pentagon building, nearly five years after the 9/11 attacks. The government had previously withheld the tape due to 'ongoing investigations' into al-Qaeda's Zacarias Moussaoui. A government representative commented that they 'hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories.'"

Your post is so full of lies, deception, manipulation and general nonsense and unfounded claims that you would be best off ignored. But it is dangerous to ignore kooks, so just to show anyone who might read your drivel and believe it how wrong you are. Examples:

"No steel/concrete skyscraper has EVER completely or even nearly completely collapse from fire before or after 9/11"

No steel/concrete skyscraper has ever had huge planes smash into them.

"video/pictures of PEOPLE HANGING OUT OF THE GASH IN THE BUILDING where temperatures hot enough to melt steel are supposed to be present"

Straw man. The steel didn't melt. It was hot enough to significantly weaken it (ask a blacksmith), but not to melt it.

Which is irrelevant, since steel doesn't have to melt to be significantly weakened.

"Another first: No steel/concrete building has ever collapsed Symetrically into its own footprint without carefully placed explosives."

No steel/concrete building has had the top part partly separated from the rest of the building, only to give in and fall down on the floors below.

"Do you even remember tower 7?"

Yes. It was severely damaged by falling debris from the other buildings.

"MANY MANY WITNESSES AND NEWS REPORTS on the day talked about many multiple exlosions inside the buildings."

If you are implying that "explosions" == "bombs", then you are, frankly, a fucking moron. Many things can cause explosions.

"Fire fighters talk about what looked like controlled detonations coming down the side of the building"

If you think that "looks like" == "actually is", then you are, frankly, a fucking moron.

"The huge flowing dust clouds that formed in the collapses are called apyroclastic flow they require HUGE amounts of energy to form"

You are delusional. When a building collapses, there is lots of air which suddenly finds itself in a lot less space, so it finds its ways out, resulting in what people observed - puffs of smoke, or puffs of dust, debris, etc.

First of all, WT7 DID NOT have a plane crash into it, and yet still fell (symetrically and into its own footprint), next:

the empire state building had a plane crash into it: At 9:49 a.m. on Saturday July 28, 1945, a B-25 Mitchell bomber accidentally crashed into the north side between the 79th and 80th floors, where the offices of the National Catholic Welfare Council were located. The fire was extinguished in 40 minutes. 14 people were killed in the accident[3].(wikipedia)

Regardless of this, the building was designed to withstand impacts by aircraft of this size, so it shouldn't (and indeed thats not the official explanation) have been the impact that caused the problem. if you think it was the fire, then compare this picture of the WTC fire towers [wtc7.net] where you can see a small area on one tower and a larger but still relatively small section on the other smoking (black indicating low oxygen therefore cooler fires) with a few visible flames, with this [concretecentre.com] and this [photobucket.com]image of the windsor building in madrid, that was totally engulfed in flames from about halfway up the building to the top, and burned for 10 hours, yet didn't collapse, with only parts not including the inner support section collapsing after burning for hours, as you might expect. Note that the tower, while smaller, had a similar construction to the wtc, being a central support column and perimeter supports, and that the tower was "built using normal strength concrete and before modern fire proofing standards, without any sprinkler system. It was undergoing a complete refurbishment, including the installation of various active fire prevention and resistance measures, when the fire began at around 11pm on 14 February 2005." (see here and here [infowars.com] for more pictures and (you may say biased) info and here for a case study [concretecentre.com] of the construction and result of the huge fire. Many other buildings have burned for similar or longer, and not collapsed. If you still think it's reasonable to accept three world first events on the same day at face value, in your words "then you are, frankly, a fucking moron.""(in a less offensive way, if it was conspiracy theorists saying that al queda did it with planes, and the government saying that they demolished it to make room for new towers or something, then would you still think it was rediculous?)

also if you think it was "not an ordinary fire" and that the addition of the jet fuel caused the extra heat that differentiated them from every other fire in history, then, from the debunking 911 myths on popular mechanics:

therefore apart from a hot start and some mild damage to the outer structure (which was not intended for holding up the bulk of the weight of the building but rather to resist torsional forces from wind etc, and therfore if that had failed would be much more likely to have caused an assymetrical toppling, rather than a symetrical fall), it was no different to any other fire in the history of steel/concrete buildings. So I ask again, why did three buildings fall on the same day from fire, and never before or since in history?

straw man. The steel didn't melt. It was hot enough to significantly weaken it (ask a blacksmith), but not to melt it.

Every aspect of every conspiracy theory about 9/11 has been systematically debunked somewhere or another. Since the WTC was structurally unique, comparisons to other buildings really don't have much bearing in the matter, and while they anticipated the impact of a 707, they did not take into account the combined effect of impact and a full load of fuel; all of this, of course, assumes that the designers were correct when saying that the building could withstand a 707. Timelines show that jets were scrambled in a timely manner when the situation was understood (within minutes of realizing the planes were hijacked and pinpointing their locations.) The dissenting expert opinions are not unusual in science; all scientific fields have their share of wing nuts, but these are fringe opinions usually based upon a single, simplistic, and inconclusive study. There were also people who speculated openly in the early days, and have since come to regret it. In the course of normal science these come out in the wash, but conspiracy theorists cherry pick these and run with them--in some cases, long after the original proponent has disowned and attempted to kill the theory attributed to him. There are pseudo-scientific theories that persist decades after they have been debunked.

The most frustrating thing about conspiracy theories is not the individual factoids that comprise them, but the profound ignorance of human nature, and the obessively magical thinking, that underlie them. As Ben Franklin said, three may keep a secret if two of them are dead. 9/11 conspiracy theories require thousands of conspirators--think of just what would be required to run drone planes into buildings, dispose of all the passengers, rig the buildings, fake everything so that the airlines wouldn't notice, and on, and on, and on. Even the mafia can't keep a secret when the boss tells one guy to whack another, and that's a conspiracy of two, protected by the Omerta!

Only a true fanatic can keep secrets like these, and then, only for a short time, provided he is kept relatively isolated. The Al Queda plan was remarkeably low tech with few moving parts and carried out by a small group of fanatics, most of whom did not arrive in America until a couple days beforehand. Even so, it almost got discovered beforehand. In the aftermath, there is almost no detail of how it was done that we don't know. Compare this with conspiracy theories, which remain isolated pinpoints of data organized by a unifying myth. The Al Queda plan left a big footprint. A government conspiracy would have left an even bigger one.

Conspiracy theories are the new secular religion, supported by the same cognitive errors which support religion, and serving the same purpose. To the conspiracy theorist, the dark cabals which run the world are both stupid and supernaturally brilliant, fools who are somehow capable of godlike prescience, omiscience, and control. The conspiracy theorist himself is a figure on the same mythical scale: he has pierced the veil of the illuminati, seen what few have seen--he is the great challenger to this omnipotent cabal. By following his warnings, we shall overcome the evil presence which has corrupted our world from within, and restore all to goodness and innocence. It's all good, because the solution is so simple.

You'll never convince him otherwise, because his entire conception of self is wound up in the idea that he is the rare visionary, the one who cannot be fooled. To admit that he is wrong would require him to admit that he is profoundly wrong, not just gulled, but gullible. This would be a fall of luciferian proportion, from grand visier to court fool. Conspiracy theorists tend to be marginal and disenfranchised. The fall from mythic heights to the harsh reality of their lives is very hard indeed.

The reality, of course, is that there may actually be no one in control, that both the leaders and the conspiracy theorists can't tell their assholes from a gopher hole, and that this has been the situation for nearly all of hum

Yeah. Bush being eeeevil, has dedicated the last four and a bit CPU-years of the Pentagon's secret beowulf cluster of Crays to rendering the snazziest pseudo-real computer graphics since that Final Fantasy movie they made so much fuss over a few years back. All in order to cover up the huge Texaco oil truck backing up to the wall, a guy in a ten-gallon hat getting out, unreeling and lighting a fuse, and scarpering in an unmarked black helicopter full of G-men.

I hope you realize that the story about 20 or so Arab men conspiring to hijack planes and fly them into various landmarks is a conspiracy theory, as well.

Many people who rant on and on about 'conspiracy theorists' follow beliefs that are just as questionable. Their position may be supported by certain governments or the mass media in various nations. But on the basis of evidence alone, their stance is often far weaker than that of even the so-called 'conspiracy theorists'.

Talk negatively about conspiracy theories all you want. Just realize that the story you hold dear is just that: a conspiracy theory.

I hope you realize that the story about 20 or so Arab men conspiring to hijack planes and fly them into various landmarks is a conspiracy theory, as well.

Excellent point AC. Most Conspiracy Theories can be dismissed easily because there probably wasn't even a consipracy to begin with. But 911 *was* a conspiracy, so by defintion any explaination is a conspiracy theory.

Note that even the official theory has all sort of bizarre aspects (James Bond-style mastermind villian in his secret underground bunker, for example).

Yeah, but there's a big difference between a conspiracy between religious extremists to hijack planes and crash them into the buildings of their enemy and a conspiracy of a government to arrange for an attack on its own people. The latter is what people mean when they talk about a conspiracy in this context. The former, yeah, it's technically and legally a conspiracy, but it's not the kind of thing that you can protect against with tin foil.

Well, there's also a big difference between "The government used hologram missiles and controlled demolition to blow up WTC" and "The government used certain bureaucratic mechanisms in order to increase the likelihood of that a known terrorist plot would be successful for ultra-cynical political gain."

Of course, most people in the Conspiracy Theory world don't really understand the difference and there's very much a "ends justify the means" attitude where any crazy idea is good if it will raise doubt on the official theory, and that approach tends to cast the whole lot in tinfoil.

And it still doesn't change the fact that an official conspiracy theory was put forward, and acted on, without a whole lot of evidence. (Not just "religious extremists", but the whole "Al Qaeda==Worldwide Terrorist Network", when the reality is that the conspiracy theory created Al Qaeda rather than visa-versa.)

And it still doesn't change the fact that an official conspiracy theory was put forward, and acted on, without a whole lot of evidence. (Not just "religious extremists", but the whole "Al Qaeda==Worldwide Terrorist Network", when the reality is that the conspiracy theory created Al Qaeda rather than visa-versa.)

That is completely untrue.

Al-Qaeda is Arabic for "the Base" or "the Foundation" - but it's actually a shortened form of the Arabic term "qaedat bayanat" - or database. Al-Qaeda started in the mid 1990s based on Osama bin Laden's personal database of Arab mujihadeen who had fought with him in Afghanistan against the Soviets. His number 2 man, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri was recruited in order to merge al-Qaeda with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

As a side note, the CIA did not fund bin Laden, although they knew of him and knew that some fighters they did fund were also working with him. The CIA's main group in Afghanistan throughout the 1990s was led by a man named Ahmad Shah Masood. Masood was assassinated by bin Laden on September 9, 2001 as a symbol of al-Qaeda's commitment to protecting the Taliban. The group that Masood founded was the Northern Alliance - the same fighters who fought with the CIA in 2001 against the Taliban.

Al-Qaeda has existed as a terrorist organization since at least 1998, and probably earlier. It was 1998 when al-Qaeda launched the attacks against the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and bin Laden declared his fatwa against the presence of American troops on the Arabian peninsula.

So, no, you are not correct. Al-Qaeda has root well before 9/11, and to insinuate that it was invented afterwards is simply not correct.

WombatControl -- I didn't mean to imply that Al-Qaeda did not exist, and I'm fully aware of the "The Database" explaination. However, by positioning Al-Qaeda as something much larger than what it actually was, the US Government's propaganda effort essentially created "Al-Qaeda London", "Al-Qaeda Spain", and "Al-Qaeda Iraq" out of random disorganized groups, thus mainfesting a "worldwide" enemy were there simply was not one before.

WombatControl -- I didn't mean to imply that Al-Qaeda did not exist, and I'm fully aware of the "The Database" explaination. However, by positioning Al-Qaeda as something much larger than what it actually was, the US Government's propaganda effort essentially created "Al-Qaeda London", "Al-Qaeda Spain", and "Al-Qaeda Iraq" out of random disorganized groups, thus mainfesting a "worldwide" enemy were there simply was not one before.

Except that is also not quite accurate. Al-Qaeda basically operated like a "

There are lots of theories as to who assinated Masood and why. Massood was an immensely popular figure and would have been the natural leader of the post taliban Afghan govt. More then likely he would not be a patsy for anyone.

The fact that he died so suddenly just before the US invasion certaintly turned out to be very convenient for both the US and Pakistani governments.

But the sad truth is that authorities often allow disasters to happen. A couple of examples in American history alone that I can think of off the top of my head:

There is evidence [wikipedia.org] to suggest Roosevelt knew about the Japanese plans to attack prior to Pearl Harbour to unite the wavering American people in entering World War II. Though this is still somewhat contentious, it is undeniable that he was certainly forcing Japan to attack by refusing to sell them fuel (for example). A sharp operator like FDR would

While your points are correct, I think it's safe to say they're only really significant in hindsight. One of the classic problems with conspiracy theory is that it retroactively highlights facts that, at the time, no one would necessarily have thought significant. Roosevelt may well have expected a Japanese attack of some sort; he almost certainly never imagined a defeat on the scale of Pearl Harbor and the loss of the Phillipines. Similarly, it's unlikely that anyone in the chain of command responsible for blowing the Tonkin incident out of proportion imagined what a quagmire Vietnam would turn into when we took over the war there and their motivations may have been much less grand than sparking a full-blown intervention anyway.

So I think it's a little off-base to say that anyone allowed disasters to happen. The chain of events leading up to them is always clear in retrospect, but another flaw in conspiracy theory is that it attributes such masterful vision and control to the conspiracists leading into the event, and then presumes such incompetence in handling and covering it up. In reality, no one has such complete control nor such prescience. Things become immensely confusing and fractious around such events, and no one who has ever been in the middle of such confusion could give much credence to these grand theories of shadowy orchestration. The Clausewitzian concept of "friction" is very real and works against such clockwork machinations as most concepts of conspiracy would have you believe.

"One flaw in the "19 Arab taking out the towers" theory is the military precision required for an effort like this."Military precision? I'm confused. How much "military precision" does one need to book tickets on four different airline flights that will be taking off at about the same time? And then say, "Okay, twenty minutes into the flight, get up and..."

I once arranged flights for people leaving from NY, San Diego, Indy, and Chicago to go skiing in Denver. We all ARRIVED within 30 minutes of one another,

So can you provide evidence of:
* Rumsfled making a lapsus about "these terrorists who pilot a plane into the WTC and a missile into this very building" while at the Pentagon
* half of the presumed "hijackers" still alive in Saudi Arabia or Qatar

Yep. That makes sense. Of course, you probably need ex-military pilots willing to commit suicide as they'd need that skill to hit both towers on the exact levels where sufficient high-explosives were pre-positioned to pancake the structure.Or is video footage of the towers collapse beginning at the same floors where the planes struck them coincidence? Or did demolition experts also willing to commit suicide and wearing fireproof suits run into the building and onto those floors and, in the middle of a ragin

Uhhhhhh, it's only a conspiracy theory if a false explanation is publicized while the real facts are kept quiet by a conspracy. What is the false explanation for the 20-1 hijackers and what are the real facts, and who are conspiring to keep them secret?

And by the way, you speak of facts, but we have never been shown proof. You know, that thing that establishes facts as such. We were told it was Bin Laden within hours of the attack, and we were told proof was forthcoming. But it never, um, forthcame.

it's dangerous to discount all conspiracy theories. The Tuskeegee Experiment was a real conspiracy. The Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish doctrine is a real conspiracy. When landlords get together and change a neighborhood's zoning laws, that's a conspiracy too.

These are the kinds of conspiracies that occur without the protection of the federal government. What kinds of schemes might people think up if they're free from any oversight whatsoever?

I'm just saying that a little paranoia is a healthy thing. I'm not saying that our government hides aliens with guitar pick-shaped heads, or that they orchestrated the 9-11 attack, or that they conspired to fool everyone into thinking Iraq had nuclear...

The alternate conspiracy theory I heard on the Pentagon crash was centered around who flew the airliner into the Pentagon, not whether or not an airliner flew into the Pentagon.

It's not all that hard to believe that an airliner flew into WTC2, since just about everyone on the planet has seen footage from a dozen cameras which show a 767/757 hitting the tower. Four planes didn't reach their destinations, four impacts are noted.

As for the alternate conspiracy theory, there are only a few remotely relevant facts. They are centered around the lack of credible identification for the 19 passengers labelled as the terrorists.

First fact: the Dulles airport video tapes purported to show part of the Flight 77 check-in lack the camera id and time data that should be present on any airport surveillance capture.

Second fact: the tapes would have to be taken 30 minutes after sunrise, but appear to show bright sunlight and short shadows for people and cars outside the terminal.

Third fact: the sounds that appear to be the terrorists on the radio are extremely short and badly distorted, leaving little chance for actual identification.

Fourth fact: people made several phone calls from the first three aircraft before they crashed, but there has been no public release of information that they physically described the terrorists (as middle-eastern or arabic).

Fifth fact: flight 77 hit the Pentagon in the most heavily reinforced and least populated part of the building, a side that was not on a direct track from takeoff to the Pentagon.

Personally, I find these facts insufficient to dispute the government's conclusions

There's no compelling reason to doubt the motive or the opportunity of radical islamist hijackers on 9/11. The presented story of the hijackers successful in seizing the aircraft is less astonishing than any alternative explanation.

All of the cases where the hijackers were supposedly spotted after 9/11 have been resolved as cases of confused identity (similar/same name) or simply bad original reporting.

Flight 77 was hijacked well into the flight (unlike Flights 11 and 175). Even though the side of the Pentagon hit was not on a direct track from Dulles to the Pentagon, it is very close to a direct track from where the transponders were disabled to the Pentagon.

As for how the WTC buildings collapsed: I agree, it sounds strange that 1) all three of the collapsed buildings would fall mostly down into their foundations 2) at rates consistent with an unimpeded collapse and 3) the heavily reinforced WTC7 fell while WTC6 remained standing (WTC6 was between WTC7 and WTC1/2).

I don't have an explanation for what happened, but then, I'm not a structural engineer. According to the engineers I've read, however, there simply isn't enough information about the collapse of well-engineered steel structures to accurately predict how they should behave during collapse. I do recall, however, that during the collapse, the bottom of each tower looked normal (windows intact, etc.) until engulfed in the debris cloud. The bottom of the tower did not look anything like the "simultaneous collapse" that deliberate building demolition almost always resembles.

Further, I do know that a puddle of kerosene burning will burn at a much lower temperature than a properly aerated and driven kerosene torch (as in, I know from personal experience that you can run a steel forge on kerosene with a correctly sized blower to supply air to the flame) and so I find it highly credible that a kerosene fire could reach well past steel annealing temperatures and get to steel melting temperatures, depending on the specifics of fuel and air flow in the fire.

Ultimately, though, there's no reason to waste your time wondering if the government actually did the atrocities of 9/11 or if several decades of destructive US foreign po

[...] a kerosene fire could reach well past steel annealing temperatures and get to steel melting temperatures, depending on the specifics of fuel and air flow in the fire.

I agree with most of your post, but let me state once and for all: the fire did not have to melt steel. It only had to weaken it. Steel gradually loses its tensile strength with temperature. It is a known fact and a pretty well researched one, since it is very important in warehouses containing flammable materials—they can easily collapse during a fire. As you could guess, the steel of an extreme building as the WTC is strained to the limit. Since the second tower to be hit was hit at a lower level (more strain because of the weight), it collapsed first (Ok, sorta simplistic).

I agree with most of your post, but let me state once and for all: the fire did not have to melt steel. It only had to weaken it.

I never meant to imply that the steel had to be melted for the building to collapse, only that I have observed a kerosene fueled furnace fully melt steel.

What I frequently hear by 9/11 conspiracy theorists is that kerosene burns at too low a temperature to weaken steel. Since steel becomes essentially plastic above the annealing temperature and I've observed a kerosene-air fire go well beyond softening steel to melting steel (white hot liquid), the assertion of the conspiracy theorists is wrong.

It is, in fact, very easy to fly a plane close to the ground without crashing. There is a wonderful thing known as "ground effect" that causes this to happen. Normally when a plane is flying, the air pushing down off the wings forms a circular vortex. However, as the plane approaches the ground (to within 2/3 the width of the wing) this vortex becomes compressed and oval. In that case, the amount of lift on the wing increases because now it requires the extra force to "squash" the vortex. This is why the "Spruce Goose" (Howard Hughe's Hercules airplane) can't actually fly, but went airborne during testing. It was entirely flown within the realm of ground effect. In fact, it cannot generate enough lift to actually achieve free flight.

In this case, a "rookie pilot" with dozens of hours in a simulator, could ease the plane towards the ground and actually find it like "dropping into a pillow" as he got close to ground level and being able to run the plane straight into the Pentagon.

On the other hand, landing a plane involves a ballet of speed, flaps, landing gear, drag, nose angle, angle of attack and half a dozen other variables. Doing everything perfectly in a landing is the *hardest* part of flying.

But they *didn't* avoid things on the ground. I believe something like 11 light poles were snapped off at the breakaway bolts when the wing sheared them. Witnesses said he hit the ground just shy of the pentagon and bounced slightly before impact. There's also nothing really around the Pentagon for obvious security reasons. Look at a satellite photo of the Pentagon some time. Then look all around it. It's mostly empty lawns.

The terrorists weren't able to make "amazingly tight turns." The words of the air traffic controller was that they "were making dangerously sharp turns" and that "you shouldn't fly a 757 that way." Rookie luck, or rookie blundering? Turning a plane too hard is typical of rookies. Face it, they didn't really care about how much stress they put on the passengers or the plane. I doubt they were worried about the maintenance record that day.

WTC7 collapsed because debris ignited the 47,000 gallons of diesel fuel stored in the building as part of the emergency command center. The building was burning and belching smoke from nearly every window for three hours before it finally collapsed. No one was surprised by it. The firemen evacuated the area around it two hours before it fell because they knew it was going to come down when huge cracks appeared up and down the facade.

As for the twin towers and why and how they collapsed -- simply look up any of the dozens of engineering studies on the failure mode of the building. The impact most likely knocked away the "blown on" insulation over the steel, and the jet fuel and collateral materials burned long enough to heat the steel. As the steel expanded, it would have snapped the joints connecting the support beams to the floor connections. As soon as one floor collapses, it puts that much more weight on the floor below it, then that floor fails, then the floor beneath, etc. What you get is a perfect "stack of pancakes" collapse, which is exactly the failure mode you see in the towers. The central core stabilizes the collapse and maintains the nearly vertical fall. I've seen interviews with the designer of the building, and he said that the way the building fell is exactly how it was *designed* to fail in a catastrophic event. No one wanted the building to wipe out half a mile of buildings around it in some unplanned catastrophe.

What was Bush doing reading? Perhaps he was scheduled to read to a group of elementary students for weeks or months in advance. Perhaps the terrorists weren't considerate enough to inform Mr. Bush of the impending attack on the World Trade Center. According to reports, when the first sketchy information about a plane hitting the World Trade Center came in, Bush's first reaction was, "That's one lousy pilot." Which, I have to admit was my first reaction upon hearing the news on my clock radio that morning. In fact, I spent twenty minutes getting up and ready before I switched to headline news to see "if they might show the moron". By that time, the second plane had already hit. According to the Conspiracy Theorists out there, I must have been part of the conspiracy because I was brushing my teeth while the planes hit the buildings. It's just as valid as your statement about Bush.

Clearly the terrorists wanted to learn how to fly because they needed the knowledge. Clearly they knew they weren't going to land, so they didn't bother with that part of the training. Was it well rehearsed and well planned out? In retrospect, it was blatantly obvious and amazingly amateurish. In retrospect. Of course, before 9/11 no one thought about flying planes into buildings.

In retrospect, the theory of gravity is blatantly obvious. Clearly we should be calling Newton incompetent and claiming that he was part of the "Gravity Conspiracy". Sheesh.

Yes, but the point is, plane or missile, something *did* hit the Pentagon, and the government was involved if only by accident by not shooting down planes that failed to transmit transponder codes or follow orders.

Sigh, this has been reported a million times, pre 09/11 Norad had very limited ability to track non transponding aircraft within continental North America. Think of the coverage as a donut, with the most effective sensors on the outside. NORAD was originally designed to track objects trying to enter US airspace, not objects originating from it.

Well at least it didn't manage to get through every single defense available and crash directly into the headquarters of the most advanced and expensive military on the planet.
Because THAT would have been embarassing.

You're wasting time. It doesn't matter how often you point out a hole or inconsistency with the official conspiracy theory, they will just ignore it, call you a nut, and believe their conspiracy theory. They wil lsay you're a conspiracy theorist and ignore that what they believe is also a conpsiracy theory, and one which doesn't make much sense.

But since the government said it, and they are unwilling to seriously look at the evidence, or consider anything that doesn't agree with the official conspiracy theory, they will not pay attention to you.

Bottom line, they reacted fairly quickly given the circumstances. Air Force jets were over NYC roughly 15 minutes after the second plane hit. Had it been a conventional attack, they could have engaged the enemy plane(s) and done fairly well. There were only like 2 military jets in the air in the entire eastern part of the US on the morning of 9/11,

Yeah -- that makes a lot of sense. A government that sends everyone away and leaves us defenseless to run a drill on how to defend us.Isn't it ironic that Dick C

While I'm sure that someone is going to state that NORAD could respond within 10 minutes of a plane deviating from its flight plan, this is actually not the case as according to the chain of command that is required to get interceptors in the air will take the better part of 1 hour. Typically someone will cite the Payne Stewart incident but that didn't really happen in 11 minutes, it was more like 1 hr and 11 minutes since the plane crossed from Eastern to Central time; this is documented, though not overtl

There are many reasons to NOT scramble an intercept in such a case but few looking to say it was a conspiracy will bother finding what they are. Some military exercises come to mind as an example and it takes a lot of phone calls to get a straight answer as to whether one is even happening. Care to take a guess how long you'd have your job if you scrambled jets and didn't check the chain of command?

Tactical situations involving national security should *always* err on the side of caution. The side of cau

He was referring to the claims that Iraq had WMD circa 2001-2003, which were used as justification for the illegal [guardian.co.uk] 2003 invasion of Iraq. Those claims were lies.

Yes, we know Iraq had WMD in the past. Of course we know that, we sold them the WMD. But Iraq had used or destroyed all its WMD prior to the illegal invasion.

>... Like cheaper, more plentiful oil.

I'm guessing you are hiding in a cave somewhere. You obviously haven't bought gas recently.

Oh, do pay attention. He was saying that the claim that oil prices would be controlled was false. The current high prices are demonstration that he's right.

And as for bringing up Bill Clinton: Did anybody claim that the problems started in 2000? No, I don't think so, so once again you're erecting a straw man.

In fact, if you look at the people who complain about the lies used to justify the invasion of Iraq, you'll find that almost all of them were also deeply critical of the Clinton era sanctions that resulted in the lingering death of tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and their children.

To say that Iraq never had WMD is pure non-sense. Ask the thousands of living Iranian widows or the Kurdish what gas they or their loved ones were exposed to and when.

Arguing with bellicose right-wingnuts is starting to feel a lot like arguing with Soviet appoligists back in the day. They reply to perfectly ordinary claims of fact--that Bush & co. lied about Iraq's WMDs and much else as a pretext for war--with a completely irrelevant non sequitur.

For those lacking basic English comprehension skills, no one claimed that Iraq never had WMDs, and trying to twist the argument to answer that premise is nothing more than an obvious admission of that fact.

This non sequitur was quickly followed by another: invoking the Ghost of Presidents Past in the form of Bill Clinton. Bellicose right-wingnuts have reached the bottom of the polemical barrel--they are now reduced to waving a stuffed scarecrow of a man from the better part of a decade ago in a desperate attempt to divert attention from the uncontroversial fact that they and theirs have lied American into a pointless and stupid war that has killed thousands of Americans for no discernible purpose.

Give it up guys--every time one of you clowns mentions Clinton it's just more proof that you have lost. Your time is done.

As far as I can tell, "The French" is just one guy with smelly armpits in a country across the Atlantic with a funky symmetrical 1/x-shaped tower. He wears a black beret, form-fitting black trousers, and a red-and-yellow striped shirt. He eats nothing but cheese and drinks nothing but wine, and he has a single opinion about everything to do with the United States: it sucks.

I think he meant it would put to rest all those crazy theories that have recently surfaced that the government is engaging in illegal domestic spying.

The timing of the tape release couldn't be more perfect, as a reminder to the populace for the reason why their civil liberties are being curtailed. Hopefully this will re-scare enough people to get Bush's approval rating moving in the other direction.

The timing of the tape release couldn't be more perfect, as a reminder to the populace for the reason why their civil liberties are being curtailed.

You say the timing is "perfect", and yet, there are so many other times that it could have been released since 9/11 that would have been just as perfect. In fact, can you name a time in the past few years when there wasn't a borderline catastrophe bubbling away in DC? Perfect timing? I think not - our bold DC leaders are truly dedicated to ensuring that every moment is equally perfect for a distracting press release. The rules changed on 9/11 - we can no longer afford to leave months or even weeks unfilled by scandal at the highest levels of government.

You can't just "train a satellite" on something, spy satellites are generally in a low earth orbit moving at around four miles per second, and have the capability of only looking in a small region (a few hundred miles on a side). While most parts of the earth are covered once or twice a day by a spy sat, it is only for a brief period of time. It is impossible to follow an aircraft with a spy satellite.Typical orbits for KH-12's are 202 x 689 km, inclination near 90 degrees (meaning twice a day coverage o

It doesn't show us anything new. It answers no questions. The frame rate of the camera was too low to catch the plane/missile/emu (take your pick) as it came in.

What would have been good would be a release of the other video tapes that were seized on 9/11. Even if their quality wasn't that good, I'd imagine at least ONE should have something vaguely resembling a plane in it.

I saw it on Fox News today and something I noticed should dampen the missile theorists. The low framerate prevented the smoking gun shot of an airplane everyone was hoping to see, however the explosion is key. There was a big red fireball with thick black smoke when it hit the building. This is evident of a fuel explosion, not a missile explosion. Dispite how movies portray ordinances exploding in big puffy fireballs, they're actually like big "bangs". They don't create much smoke, instead just blow du

I work in DC, and lived -- at the time -- in Old Town Alexandria. On Sept 11, given the general state of confusion, I opted not to take the metro home that day, and instead walked home along the GW parkway ( it was such a beautiful day, actually -- and the ten mile walk allowed me to really think about the situation, and how this was pretty much the end of freedom in the US for a while at least, but that's another story ).

Anyway -- here's the thing. I was upwind of the pentagon, maybe a mile away, and I smelled ( what smelled to me like ) burning kerosene. LOTS of burning kerosene. As in, I personally stank of kerosene smoke after walking past.

Frankly, that's enough for me. I understand that jet fuel is more or less like kerosene, and I would expect a crashed airplane to burn up whatever's in its tanks. Hence, the stench of lots of burning kerosene.

Now, regarding the "another story"... as I was approaching National airport ( I will never call it "Reagan National" ), I came across a bunch of toddlers and little kids, surrounded by military personnel. There was another civilian ( like me ) walking past, she had a camera, and took a photo of the pentagon smoke, and another of the military types and the children. The officials immediately stormed her, confiscated her camera and tore out the film. Very rudely, I might add. I saw all this, and after the lady left, I walked up and said to one of the friendlier looking guards "What was that all about?". She said the kids were pentagon employee children from the daycare facilities and they wanted to respect their privacy -- which is commendable, so in principle I understand. But the way they went about it was unnacceptable.

I saw one of the opening acts of our descent into a police state, right there.

Ok, so first of all we all know that nobody walks home 10 miles. That is just common sense. And just why is it that *all of the sudden* after 9/11 you no longer live in Old Town?? Something smells fishy. Second, kerosene burns in lamps, and the pentagon is a very secretive place, so they probably don't have lights. Therefore they could not possibly have any kerosene there. Third, smoke rises so you couldn't possibly have smelled it from a *mile* away. Like what, the laws of physics just didn't apply that day? Well I asked a physics professor and he said the laws of physics *always* apply! So, just how is it that *you* would smell like kerosene unless, obviously, you had rubbed kerosene on your clothing to make people *think* there was a something like kerosene burning. As for the photograph, its obviously *you* that took the film because you didn't want any documented evidence that you were in fact at the National Airport the whole time! Obviously you were in the mysterious "unmarked white plane" and had just landed.

Nice try, Mr. Three-Letter-Agency, but we can see right through your web of lies.

Odd that the idiot conspiracy theorists have yet propose a solutuion to the following:1) where is American flight 77?2) where are all the people that were on board flight 77?3) why are the family members of all the people on board flight 77 not concerned that a plane is missing.

These are the same questions that (presumably other?) conspiracy theorists are asked about KAL flight 007. Some answers they have given in that case and probably do now about flight 77:

It is a complete waste. It's like a George Lucas remake of the original camera that we have already seen over the last 4 1/2 years. And by "George Lucas" remake I mean it is 99% original material, but from new angles!

No plane can be seen and all you really see is a flash of light then an explosion.

I'm not one of those whack-job conspiracy theorists but for Judicial Watch to make claims of, "this will end all conspiracy theories" and then go on to release this load of steaming dog poo is poor judgement and will only continue to be fodder for the tin foil hatters the world over.

the US government has decided to release the videotape depicting the crash of Flight 77 into the Pentagon building, nearly five years after the 9/11 attacks

We should have had this on day 1. How did keeping this under wraps help the Moussaoui trial?This kind of secretive attitude creates an environment where conspiracy theories flourish. If the Government wants to disprove these theories, they should release as much information as they safely can, instead of fighting tooth and nail to keep everything secret.

Regarding conspiracy theories, I believe the burden is on the conspiracy theorists to prove their theories, not for the targeted group to disprove all conspiracies directed towards them. If I say "George Bush is an alien," should he undergo a medical examination specifically to prove that he is human, or should I offer undeniable proof of his extra-terrestriality?

Most of the traffic I've seen about the conspiracy theories centers around the most recent Loose Change [google.com] video. The claims in the video are well-argued but absolutely silly. While trying to explain this to several people who had sent it to me (as well as check to see if maybe some of their stuff was true) I stumbled on an excellent viewer's guide in which the video is taken apart line-by-line and fact/logic-checked. I found it on some cached upload site thing whose reliability I can't vouch for, so I've mirrored it here:

This 'debunking guide' has language just as smarmy and referenceless statements just like conspiracy videos. That degrades its credibility, in my eyes. I was keen on seeing a decent debunking of the loose change video, but this guide is simply a troll. If you want to be taken seriously, speak seriously. Here are a few select quotes:

"You must be thinking of the old Pentagon, which was made of balsa wood and marshmallows" (p. 31)

"KARL! Thank God we've got an expert in the house!" (p. 33)

"And they're all accounted for. You can check yourself if you don't believe me." (p. 41)

"They work for the 'Boss'. (Springsteen?)" (p. 42)

This sloppy scarcastic language is found throughout the guide. Why should I take it seriously?

This sloppy scarcastic language is found throughout the guide. Why should I take it seriously?

It's fairly sensible to accept more sloppy language in something disputing an extraordinary claim than in something making the claim in the first place. If you think about it, you see it everywhere. It's the same reason Snopes is reasonably trusted -- debunking a claim doesn't take nearly the credibility it takes to make one. After a claim is made, the incentives shift, and parties previously uninvolved are brought in. The dialogue changes, but the debate also changes to be more fact-check-y and less initial-claim-make-y. This permits sloppier language to be taken more seriously.

But by all means -- and I say this without sarcasm -- take seriously anything you want using whatever credibility metrics work for you.

For those of you unaware of the conspiracy theories floating around, 911: Loose Change [google.com] is a documentary that claims that the U.S. government planned and executed the attacks on 911. It's obviously all B.S., but it does make you think. The documentary fails to address the fact that no one tried to expose these plans beforehand. If the U.S. gov't tried to do something like this, thousands of people would of have to known about it. Anyone with a conscience would have exposed this plan and tried to put a stop to it. And there has a to be at least A FEW government employees that have a conscience. Either way it's such a stretch, it almost reminds of the whole "We never landed on the moon" theory. People are willing to say anything to get some attention.

Love that place, and love the Freedom of Information Act that allows it to exist -- one of the true strengths of our Democracy.

If you haven't read it, and if you are at all prone to dismissing "conspiracy theories" on the basis that our government wouldn't do that kind of thing, you have to read it. If you've ever wondered: Did the CIA really know and approve of the Contras funding their war by selling drugs in the States? Did the U.S. really know that Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iran and the Kurds at the same time Donald Rumsfeld was shaking Saddam's hand and providing cover stories for him? Read it.

Nothing that I know of that is relevent to the current situation, but it is still a fantastic archive and a great resource for putting to pasture any remaining naivete you may have about the nature of governments.

Like extremists need any help to make a plan to kill thousands of people.

If anything, the US Government could have let terrorist plan the 9/11 attack. Why do it or contribute themselves

BTW, I'm not paranoid, but if there was just a SINGLE camera taking care of the Dep. of Defense of the most powerful country in the world and it had a capture rate so slow that it couldn't grab the frame where the the 747 appeared, you'd need at least to fire somebody because it's insane.

The insurance changing hands mere hours before the attack on the WTC was enough to convince me BEFORE I saw loose change. Let's not forget the "security drills" where regular employees were kept out, etc. There is too much evidence to asuage as a nutty conspiracy theory, no matter how unflattering some random pdf propaganda is to a particular documentary.

As much as I don't trust Bushco, I just can't see all those people not being dead. You can't cover up something that big.

I mean, we clearly saw the planes hit the towers, so it's logical to assume that if planes were used in place A, why bother to not use planes in place B.

I think the thurst of the paranoia would be better suited looking at how the towers fell as if internal explosions took them down, and the planes were just for drama. That's the only part that I think I can begin to question, though that's not to say our government is more behind it than any other government in the world. If anything's wrong, it's the towers falling so quickly like they did.

Not that I really believe Bush planned it, (is he smart enough?) but if someone other than bin Laden and his crazies was in on it, I want their heads too.

Wow, thanks. That's fascinating, in that it directly contradicts the official story -- has it been adopted into the official story?

No, because that interpretation of Silverstein's words is incorrect. The word "pull" is used in demolition to mean manually knocking a structure down using, say, a wrecking ball or cables. The term used for explosive demolition is "shoot".

Except FEMA claims that it was primarily fire damage that caused the collapse.

That was a preliminary report with little investigation.

Which makes sense, as for the building to fall straight down as it did the core of the building would have had to have been damaged, while if the damage to the south side was critical to the collapse either that side would have fallen while the rest remained upright or it would have fallen over rather than implode.

1. Not that I doubt the Pentagon was hit by an aircraft, but it is documented fact that several security camera tapes were confiscated after the crash. Release them in their entirety.

The videos are property of the companies they were confiscated from. It's up to those companies to publically release the videos, not the government.

2. Explain to me why standard operating procedures for NORAD that would normally require specific orders to disregard, were disregarded that day.

What procedures were ignored?

3. Explain to me how WTC-7 came to be the only steel-framed structure in recorded history to suffer a complete collapse as a result of fire alone. (FEMA's own report offers an elaborate theory which they say has a "low probability of occurance")

The FEMA report was preliminary. Further investigation, not to mention some [batcave.net] pictures [kolumbus.fi] and some [firehouse.com] interviews [firehouse.com] with firefighters on the scene, indicate that WTC7 also suffered severe structural damage, not just fire.

4. In light of the signifigance (particularly to insurers, architechts, engineers) of WTC-7's collapse-due-to-fire, why were the building remains sold to China for scrap before they could be fully analyzed?

The building had been evacuated hours before the collapse, it was not necessary for rescue crews. This is a major event in the building industry: if steel structures can collapse from fire alone, insurance rates would have to be adjusted, architects would have to reconsider the design of thousands of structures.

Well, if a building couldn't collapse due to fire alone, then what's the point of fireproofing the steel columns?

5. If Flight 93 was destroyed by being crashed (intentionally or accidentally) into a field in Shanksville, PA, why did it leave a debris field over 8+ miles?

It didn't. Indian Lake is not 6 miles from the impact site, as some people would like you to believe. Popular Mechanics has some bits about Flight 93 [popularmechanics.com] (continues on next page, too) in their "9/11: Debunking The Myths" article.

If you want to kill the conspiracy theories, you have to explain WTC7. It was over-engineered because it was the bunker for emergencies for NYC.

No, the building itself wasn't, and how could it be? The bunker came well after the construction of WTC7. Not to mention that WTC7 was built over an electrical substation, and that required such unique construction that ultimately failed under load, because if significant damage.

Then you have the owner of the building, Larry Silverstein, saying that he was sorry they had to "pull" the building. (Link to video below.)

The word "pull" is used in the demolitions industry to indicate manual demolition through things like wrecking balls and, literally, pulling the structure over or down. When you talk about explosive demolition, you use the word "shoot".

Why would they disavow pulling the building due to safety concerns? Because it takes weeks to plan the demolition of a building, and you can't really plant explosives to pull a building if the building is on fire. Especially the kind of fire that is melting steel, which occurs at 3000 degrees Fahrenheit.

There is no evidence "melted steel", especially at WTC7. Of course, steel doesn't have to melt in order to fail. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that at half its melting point, steel has only 25% of its strength.

Explain why a high rise in Spain can burn for over 24 hours, partially collapse, and still not fall.

lol. Wow, awesome. You fell for that claptrap hook, line, and sinker. Did you know that the Windor building is a predominately concrete structure? Did you realize that the steel parts of the building exposed to the fire did fail?

Don't waste my time if you can't be bothered to do basic research [911myths.com].

Explain why the only three steel and concrete buildings in history to collapse from fire do it on a single day in the same square mile.

My God... Why do you people keep insisting that fire was the only cause of these collapses? You only demonstrate severe ignorance and blindness when doing so. Have you forgotten about the two planes that impacted WTC1 and WTC2? How about the severe structural damage (evidence for which I linked to earlier) of WTC7? How many other steel building in history have been subjected to these conditions? You're conveniently ignoring all of this.

Further to my article posting...it appears the "new" video is no more than a slightly higher quality and lenghtier version of the Pentagon's CCTV camera tape - released less than six months after 9/11 itself. I won't go in to the inconsistancies here - spot them for yourself at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4987716. stm [bbc.co.uk]> the BBC's page.

Will it put the conspiracy theories to rest? No. Did the US government want this footage retained as it simply fuels speculations of foul play; what with a higher quality image of a false looking 747 revealed?

If anything, this new higher definition tape just fans the flames of speculation. What about the CCTV confiscated from nearby establishments such as a high rise hotel? These too are in possession of the US government - yet haven't been released. If they give (as they will, given their position overlooking the Pentagon) clearer pictures, then why haven't these been released as well, to utterly cement US claims of Flight 77's actual crash?

The release of this video is not about "disproving conspiracy theories". It's to remind the american people of what happened 5 years ago. Approval ratings are plummeting across the board, when were the president's approval ratings at their highest? right after 9/11. It's pretty clever, we havent had any other attacks to scare us into submission, why not bring the terrorist attacks of 9/11 back in the citizen's minds? Thats just my two cents

And here's [chaboud.com] (video, wmv) a video of me kicking over a box right before another copy of me walks in front of the first and picks the box up.

I made it in about 20 minutes. They've had five years. I'm definitely not saying that the video is faked. I'm just saying that the conspiracy theorists will just look at this as a feeble attempt to fight back a tide of question-worthy evidence.

They might be right, or they might not. I'll be surprised if we ever get solid evidence one way or another. If I had the really good tape of the hit locked up in the Pentagon, I'd just hang on to it to mess with people.

While I'm of the opinion that just because little of it can be seen doesn't imply that it must not have happened, I must still say that it's strange that this particular building isn't under better surveillance that they can barely catch an entire plane flying into it clearly.

Let's crank up our imaginations here. When the front of the airplane hit the Pentagon, the back of the airplane was still moving at 500mph. What do you think happens to an airplane when one end is not moving and the other end is travelling at 500mph? Ever smooshed an aluminum can with your foot? Ever filled it up with kerosene and smooshed it with your foot? Ever do it with a propane torch running next to it at the same time?If so, I want to stay far, far away from you, because you're a dangerous fool.

The wings on most aircraft today are made to shear off (eg; snap off of the fuselage) upon impact, in order to reduce the risk of ruptured fuel tanks discharging their burning payload directly into the cabin.

The only reason that the outlines of the planes' wings remained on both of the impacted WTC towers was due to the building materials. Short of the box girders, those sites were covered with a thin stainless steel facade. The underlying girders themselves were in fact a ruddy brown color, which would be invisible to the naked eye under fire conditions, adding to the illusion that those planes somehow punched a huge hole through, when at best it was approximately the size of the fuselage as well. Evidence of this is consistent with the debris left at the Pentagon.

Similarly, you have building materials VS. aircraft design in the Pentagon attack. The Pentagon was initially designed to withstand aerial bombardment during WWII, and retrofitted for nuclear attack in the decades to follow. That translates to LOTS of reinforced concrete and stone which, if anyone else here watched impact testing and missile tests against solid concrete bunkers, et al, showed very similar, if not exactly, the same results when compared to the Pentagon attack. The impacts would not only have sheared off the wings, but the general refusal of reinforced concrete to either snap or bend out of the way would have resulted in a misleadingly small impact site.As for nonexistant skid marks at the Pentagon, it may just be possible that the plane was either in level flight, or on the rebound (as evidenced by light posts that were snapped off at the base, exactly as they're designed to) before impacting.

Additionally, to all the nutters who claimed the WTC was hit by a missile, those so called pods are in fact the rear landing gear bays, the flash they claim to be a launch is more than likely a high voltage discharge from the radome in the aircraft's nose (visible just as the fiberglas dome comes into contact with the outside of the towers). Just bright enough to arc and trigger theories everywhere from people who have no idea how planes are made, sadly enough.

But nowhere enough to give people the real story about 9/11, just more noise to keep people with real credentials from being heard.

Anyway, the long and short: There's a lot more involved in aerospace than most would imagine, and even fewer bother to verify or study, like much junk science or conspiracy theories. If the idea of aircraft "disappearing" in the process of crashing sounds like a conspiracy, then the Valujet crash in the Everglades a decade or so ago must have come from little green men indeed.

I can see where you're coming from, and the "New Pearl Harbour" comment by Wolfie and Rumsfeld back in 1999 certainly does make me wonder sometimes, but I disagree on two points:

1 Bush is not a patsy. He is a member of the cabal who is perfectly happy to be seen as "too dumb to sin". Makes any future trial a LOT easier. But he is in it up to his neck for the same reason Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld are: he's an oil man. Nothing more and nothing less. Oil and oil shares are the only things he cares about and he's as happy as the rest of them to kill a few hundred or thousands (especially if they are foreigners) to get them. Iran is just sabre-rattling to boost the price of oil and their collective pension funds.

2. I think Bush simply ignored the warnings because he and his friends thought it was going to be a small attack like the van bomb. That would have been enough of a "Pearl Harbour" for the PNAC. He was genuinely shocked when the scale of it became clear. He must have been thinking about what would happen if the story of all the warnings he'd had came out before his friends in the media clamped the lid on it. He had a close shave but Fox et al came to the rescue and people like John O'Neil were literally buried in the bad news and shock.

Now the reality bit: all empires have been founded on economics. They have to be. It is only in the post-WWII era that governments have decided to pretend otherwise (around the time the War Department became the Defence Department). The reality is that America needs Iraq's oil and now it has it. And if they did not, the American economy would be in deep shit very soon. In the old days this would have been explained openly - proudly - and then the troops sent in. Britain did it all the time. Japan did it. Germany and Italy did it. The Romans did it (grain mostly rather than oil). It's a fact of life. What has changed is that an extra layer of hypocrisy has been added. But there's nothing unusual about invading a country with or without a pretext to seize its resources, even if it means letting someone attack you first when you could have stopped them. The alternative is to drastically change your way of life, a way of life that these guys at the top simply worship and can not even imagine changing just because a bunch of dirty foreign rag-heads object! The idea actually makes them feel ill; you can see it on their faces when they talk about countries that have oil and aren't being properly servile. They hate that. They are by their own definition the pinacle of human achievement and despise anyone who does not vocally agree with that assessment. Look at Bush's crack about the London anti-war protests. The rabble are not entitled to an opinion.

A hundred years ago Wolfowitz would have got a medal, now he gets a cushy job in the World Bank. He successfully defended the American Way of Life(tm). And if you read his speeches and letters about why a pretext for invading Iraq had to be found, I think you'll see that's what he thought all along.

This is not as far out as it seems. What everybody seems to forget is that Bin Laden was a CIA agent for years and years when he was part of the mujahideen that were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. He was our boy, on our payroll. We gave him cash, weapons, logistical support, equipment and god knows what else. So what I wanna know is this:

The short answer is we didn't.

Bin Laden wasn't funded by the CIA. He wouldn't have taken American money anyway, and didn't need it besides. We did fund some groups that were associated with his Arab mujihadeen, but not his group directly.

The person you're thinking of was Ahmad Shah Masood [wikipedia.org], who was one of the more successful Afghan fighters during the war. Masood was an enemy of the Taliban, and was assassinated by al-Qaeda shortly before 9/11 to help reassure the Taliban that al-Qaeda would protect them from American reprisals. (Bloody lot of good that did!)

Ahmad Shah Masood was the founder of the anti-Taliban resistance called The Northern Alliance - and that's one of the reasons that the CIA had such good luck in Afghanistan - we were working with the same fighters we had a decade before in fighting the Russians.

Bin Laden wasn't funded by the CIA. He wouldn't have taken American money anyway, and didn't need it besides. We did fund some groups that were associated with his Arab mujihadeen, but not his group directly.

I hope this was intended funny --or-- OMG you are ignorant. Cell phones work on planes without a transponder or re-transmitter on the plane. You just are discouraged from using the cell phone while it is in flight. I used my cell phone just last week from inside a plane on the ground. Now it might be at certain altitudes and great distances from city center a cell phone wouldn't connect, but when a hijacking is in progress nobody is going to think "Oh, I can't use my cell phone, it's against FAA rules."

t just makes no sense to me why a surveillance camera would film at such a shitty rate especially at the PENTAGON for christs sake

It's quite simple, actually: the tape will last a lot longer if you shoot it at only one frame per one or two seconds. If you're trying to find out at what time did a car enter or exit the compound (which the cameras the footage was taken from seem to be there for, judging from their position), this will just about suffice; with any luck, you'll even see a blurry picture of the